


The Pigeon Incident

by Plenoptic



Series: The Indecent Reign of Maestro da Vinci [7]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, Blowjobs, Dom/sub Play, M/M, Mutual Pining, Niccolò Machiavelli's Geopolitical Maneuvering Kink, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Polyamory, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:48:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25832299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plenoptic/pseuds/Plenoptic
Summary: The penultimate installment. Further entanglements ensue and the stage is set.
Relationships: Ezio Auditore da Firenze/La Volpe, Ezio Auditore da Firenze/Niccolò Machiavelli, Ezio Auditore da Firenze/Niccolò Machiavelli/La Volpe, Niccolò Machiavelli/La Volpe, Niccolò Machiavelli/Leonardo da Vinci
Series: The Indecent Reign of Maestro da Vinci [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/199970
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	The Pigeon Incident

Niccolò did not, in fact, have a plan for getting both Ezio and Leonardo into his bed—he had about a hundred, each a little more complex than the last. He did draw the line at an outright kidnapping (although Volpe was in favor), albeit a little reluctantly, because it really would make it all so much easier. And as much as he liked a well-executed plan, he liked expedience even more. Niccolò Machiavelli was not a patient man.

It was a mixed blessing, therefore, when Ezio looked up at him drunkenly over a bottle of wine one evening and mumbled, “I’ve been sleeping with men.”

Niccolò stopped with his glass halfway to his mouth and arched a brow. His chair creaked a little as he shifted his weight. “Oh?”

“Mm.” Ezio rubbed a hand across his eyes. He looked exceptionally tired, like he was ready to keel over. It was a little amazing that he’d put away as much wine as he had and managed to remain conscious. There was a softness to him tonight; he sat on the floor in front of the fire, leaning his weight against Niccolò’s legs without the slightest care for how it came across. “You ruined me.”

Machiavelli grinned and dared to sweep a hand through Ezio’s dark hair, pleased when the older assassin allowed it. He really did have incredible hair. It was annoying, actually. Niccolò had not seen his own hair long since he was very young, but he knew he lacked Ezio’s volume and richness of texture. He played with a dark lock as he weighed his next words. “Odds are that you were ruined from the start, _amico_. I only opened your eyes to it.”

“I haven’t given up women,” Ezio said, almost defensive, and Niccolò shrugged.

“And you don’t have to.”

Ezio closed his eyes, sighing when Niccolò’s fingers gentled in his hair. “I always thought it had to be one or the other. And if you quote the creed, so help me God,” he added, thumping a fist against Niccolò’s knee.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Mentor.” Machiavelli let his hand wander, brushed a cautious thumb along the proud line of Ezio’s jaw, and the older man fairly purred at his attention. “But have you been enjoying yourself?”

“More than I’d like to admit.”

Machiavelli grinned. “Have you let someone fuck you?”

“No,” Ezio admitted, and the redness in his cheeks spread nearly to his ears. “I want to.”

“But?” When Ezio didn’t reply, Niccolò smiled and leant down over him, trailing his mouth across Ezio’s brow, and he felt the proudest and strongest assassin in all of Italy shiver beneath him. “But it’s frightening. Yes?”

“Yes,” Ezio murmured, tilting his chin up, and when they kissed it was clumsy, little more than a heady union of tongues and teeth and the shared taste of dark wine. Ezio sat up so suddenly that his head very nearly caught Niccolò on the mouth, but he silenced the younger man’s affronted huff with a slick kiss that lingered, turned hungry, and before he could stop himself Niccolò was curling his hands in Ezio’s hair, pulling him closer than sin. Ezio put a hand between his legs, palmed him roughly all up and down the length of his hardening cock.

“Ezio— _Ezio_.” Machiavelli marshaled himself with Herculean will, planted his hands on Ezio’s shoulders and pushed him back. “Wait. You don’t want me to be your first. I think we’re just drunk.”

“I know what I want,” Ezio said, his voice low and dulcet, softer than velvet. He tugged on Machiavelli’s belt.

“Just—let’s wait. Ezio, _stop_.”

Ezio did, removing his hands as quickly as if Niccolò’s belt had caught fire against his palms and leaning back on his haunches. They stared at one another in the flickering firelight, breathing hard, and after a long moment Ezio groaned and scrubbed a hand across his eyes. “Fuck. You’re right. Fuck. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s fine.” Niccolò shook his head. “Ezio, it’s fine. Really.”

“Will la Volpe—?”

Niccolò snorted. “Gilberto asks me every day if I’ve—and I’m quoting, here—‘cast the line again.’ Nothing would delight him more than if I brought you home to him tonight, I’m sure.”

“So then…?”

With a heaved sigh, Machiavelli opened his knees and beckoned. Eyes dark, Ezio shuffled forward and knelt between his comrade’s thighs. Machiavelli flashed a grin down at him. “You look good on your knees.”

“Fuck off,” Ezio retorted. He ducked his head, and Machiavelli caught his chin and forced it up, his grin widening when he saw the older man’s throat bob.

“Your mouth is watering.”

“Fuck _off_.”

“You really _have_ been enjoying yourself.” Niccolò sat back in his chair, looking as self-satisfied as a mongoose that has thwarted a cobra. “I won’t fuck you—not tonight. But go on, then, if you want it so badly.”

Ezio glowered at him, but his pupils were dilated, his lips swollen already, and Machiavelli could have crowed his delight when the older assassin leaned in to mouth softly along the length of his cock. Niccolò inhaled, smothered the sharpness of his breath behind his knuckles as his hips shifted. His hose dampened beneath Ezio’s caressing mouth in mere moments, and he chuckled, almost breathless.

“Never in a hundred—a _thousand_ years did I imagine that Ezio Auditore would go to his knees for me.”

“You’ve got a big fucking mouth, you know that?” Ezio shot at him, and began to tease at the laces of his hose. They were not the most exceptionally modest pair Niccolò owned, and Ezio raised his eyebrows as he found the laces that ran up the sides of the younger man’s thighs, leaving gaps of exposed skin. They didn’t even properly connect with his codpiece, and Ezio’s tongue found bare skin at the junction of his thighs and groin. “Dressed like a slut,” he commented, and grinned when Machiavelli rapped knuckles on the side of his head.

“Don’t be an ass. Gilberto likes them.”

“He would,” Ezio snorted. Niccolò’s hand tightened in his hair and jerked his head back, depriving him of what he wanted, and he glared. “ _What?_ ”

“Who do you want to be fucked by?”

Ezio blinked. He shouldn’t have been startled by the brazenness of the question, but he was. “No one in particular,” he answered at length.

“You’re lying,” Machiavelli murmured, his mouth curling into something that was not quite a smile.

“I am not—”

“You blink twice quickly when you’re lying.” Machiavelli’s hand caught around his jaw and tightened, almost like a threat. “Remember who you’re talking to, Auditore.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Ezio replied. He opened his mouth, let Machiavelli sweep a thumb across his tongue. “You insist on baring your fangs at me, but I know how sweet that mouth can be.”

“Yet I know almost nothing of the sweetness of yours.” Niccolò slid a hand into Ezio’s hair, gathered it at his nape, and tugged him forward. “So show me.”

Ezio’s hands fumbled for a moment, and Niccolò’s breath was sharp above him, and then he had it, finally, that blood-hot, velvet texture in his mouth. He bobbed his head around it, let the moan roll up out of his chest and spill across his protégé’s skin, and the desperate noise that Machiavelli tried and failed to choke off was well worth the slight indignity of being on his knees. The hand in his hair was gentle now, massaging his scalp, the moans above him breathless and needy.

“Well. Aren’t _you_ a fast learner.”

Ezio’s heart leapt into his throat, colliding, he was sure, with the head of Machiavelli’s cock, and he coughed as he drew up. Volpe arched a brow down at him; the thief looked absolutely delighted at his find, leaning his weight almost casually against the back of Niccolò’s chair. Niccolò tipped his head back to look up at his lover, and Volpe bent to steal a kiss from his panting mouth, cradling the younger man’s jaw in one wickedly deft hand.

And then Volpe glanced back down at Ezio, and a grin quirked his mouth. “I didn’t tell you to stop.”

Ezio’s blood surged—through his heart, to his head, everywhere else that mattered. He nuzzled his nose and mouth along the spit-slick length of Machiavelli’s cock before swallowing him down again, and Niccolò made a broken noise against Volpe’s mouth, hand tightening in Ezio’s hair.

“Terribly cruel of you, _tesoro_ , leaving me out of your fun,” Volpe murmured, and smiled when Niccolò whined and clutched at his hand.

“ _Mi dispiace_ —Gilberto—”

“Shh, shh. No apologies needed.” Volpe kissed him again, adjusting his hand to close it around the highest point of the younger man’s throat, and Niccolò moaned, his hips rocking, before his voice failed him. “Ezio—have you had a man finish in your throat yet?”

Ezio couldn’t shake his head, but he opened his eyes and looked up at the thief, and clearly the desperate thing lurking behind his eyes was answer enough. Volpe grinned, knife-sharp, almost brutal. He bent to claim Niccolò’s mouth once more before straightening and circling around them to pick up the bottle of wine.

“Most find it unpleasant, I think,” he said, as casually as if he were discussing a bit of interesting weather, and not watching another man suck his lover off. He threw back a half glass of wine and topped it off again. “I certainly did, before I had this one.” He toasted Niccolò, who groaned, but whether it was out of chagrin or pleasure or both was far beyond Ezio to tell.

Ezio’s pulse was a wild thing in his throat as Volpe came to stand behind him. He felt the thief’s deft fingers in his hair, caressing, and then they tightened and pushed his head down. Ezio choked for a moment before he managed to relax, and a sharp tug in his hair brought him back up, gasping, the head of Machiavelli’s cock smearing his mouth with pre-come and his own spit.

“Lick,” Volpe commanded, his voice low and dangerous and lovely, and Ezio obeyed, helpless to do anything but. He ran his tongue along the full length of Machiavelli’s prick, paying special attention to the flared head, trapping the younger man’s thighs under his hands when he shifted and whined.

Volpe dropped to a crouch behind him and slid a hand down the front of Ezio’s trousers, found his cock hard and weeping. Ezio could have sobbed his relief when Volpe released him and gave him a few strokes that were just short of too hard.

“Please,” Niccolò mumbled, breathless, and Ezio leaned in for his cock again, grunted when Volpe’s hand caught his hair and held him back. The sweet sounds from Machiavelli’s mouth turned to snarls in an instant. “God _dammit_ , Volpe—”

“You’ll watch your mouth, _caro_ , if you want his again,” Volpe said, and to Ezio’s great shock, Machiavelli actually fell silent. “Better. You can suck him, Ezio.”

Ezio had to close his eyes for a moment to steady his rapid breathing, the spinning of his head, before he took Niccolò’s length into his mouth again. Volpe caressed his cock, rubbed a thumb around the slit, spreading the dampness there, and Ezio moaned, rocked his hips into the touch. Volpe’s hands were something else—just enough strong, just enough dexterous, just enough rough.

“Aren’t you envious?” Machiavelli drawled, and Ezio opened his eyes and glanced up, found the younger man watching him with a wide grin. Impossible to tell which of them he had been speaking to. His hand joined Volpe’s in Ezio’s hair, hips rocking, and Ezio groaned around the intrusion as his own protégé fucked the back of his throat—gently, yes, but Ezio could only withstand a few soft thrusts before he had to draw back, gasping.

“How is he?” Volpe asked, his voice crooning. He scraped a nail along the flared margin between Ezio’s head and shaft, and Ezio’s eyes rolled back, his breath leaving him in a punched-out moan.

“Oh, his mouth is decadent, but he has no stamina.”

“Be nice,” the thief chided. “It was months before I could fuck your throat properly, and you were young, at that.”

“You asked,” Machiavelli grumped, and guided Ezio’s head back down. “Deep breaths, Mentor. Lift the back of your throat.” Ezio scowled up at him, and Machiavelli offered him a shaky smile. “Come on. Just once, let me know something you don’t.”

Ezio rolled his eyes and then let them fall closed, and did as Niccolò instructed. The young man’s moan turned honeyed, and his hand tightened.

“Fuck. _Fuck_. Oh—swallow—”

Ezio did, shuddered at the bitterness in the back of his throat. He’d been so focused on pleasuring Machiavelli that he’d lost track of the hand on his own length, and his orgasm suddenly pounced on him like—well, like a fox, Volpe’s hand wringing him dry in his own lap. He moaned and choked around Niccolò’s cock, felt the younger man stiffen beneath his hands, his breath catching—

Volpe dragged his head back, very suddenly, and Niccolò’s moans turned into a harsh grunt between his clenched teeth. He clutched the arms of his chair, shaking, and cast a thunderous glare up at the thief, who only grinned as he stroked Ezio down from his climax.

“I didn’t give you permission to come, _tesoro_.”

“It’s been _two weeks!_ ” Niccolò growled, his hips shifting. Ezio’s mouth was right _there_ , swollen and wet, still open for him, it would be easy to just plunge in and take what he needed—but Volpe was smiling at him, his eyes dark and lovely.

“Are you saying you can’t do it?”

Machiavelli’s breath caught, and his knuckles turned bloodless and white around the arms of the chair, but he forced his hips to still. Volpe slid a hand around Ezio’s jaw, pressed his mouth closed, and then stepped around him. Niccolò glared up at him, didn’t open his mouth for the kiss Volpe pressed to his lips. He closed his eyes and focused on breathing through his nose when his lover’s hand enclosed his cock and pumped him gently, achingly slow.

“Poor thing,” Volpe crooned, and Machiavelli swallowed, clenched his jaw. “You want it so badly.”

Niccolò didn’t speak, but he knew Volpe would feel his pulse thudding in his cock. Volpe kept stroking him, and he felt his climax building again—he willed his body not to give him away, willed his breathing to be steady, but he couldn’t stop his balls drawing up tight against the base of his cock, and Volpe chuckled and released him.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Niccolò bit out, and reached for himself, but Volpe was too fast, caught his wrists and pinned him back against the chair. “God fucking _dammit_ —”

Volpe kissed him, smiling, and Niccolò leaned up into it, let the thief plunder his mouth for a moment before he snapped his teeth. Volpe withdrew with a laugh. “So _angry_ , your Excellency.”

“I have every reason to be, you son of a bitch.”

Volpe’s hand caught his throat and forced his jaw up, and Niccolò’s cock gave a traitorous twitch; he felt the wet drip of pre-come down his shaft and bit his lower lip to hold in a whimper. “I let you get so close, _tesoro_. Don’t you have something to say?”

He had to bite his own tongue to keep from laughing; Niccolò looked ready to kill him. “ _Thank you_ ,” the young man growled, speaking like he’d rather have his own teeth wrenched from his mouth than those words. All the same, he tangled his hand in Volpe’s hair and pulled him close for a brutal kiss.

“Alright,” Ezio said, his voice weak and shaky, and they broke apart to look at him. He’d leaned back to rest his weight against the other armchair, and watched them with an expression of such complete mystification that Volpe couldn’t help but laugh. “What the _hell_ are you two doing?”

“Playing a game,” Volpe replied, still grinning.

Ezio sighed. “Another one of Leonardo’s…recommendations?”

“Oh, no. This one is a Machiavelli original,” Volpe sing-songed, and ruffled Niccolò’s hair. The younger man snarled at him and batted his hand away.

Ezio blinked, then grinned at his protégé. “You elected to torture yourself? Why?”

“Just to prove he can.” Volpe earned himself a punch to the shoulder then, and he backed off, snickering.

Ezio rolled his eyes and lifted himself into the armchair, pausing to tuck himself back into his breeches and wipe his hand across his mouth. Machiavelli had crossed his arms over his chest and was fuming up at the ceiling, bouncing his leg while he waited for his erection to flag. Volpe reached out to trace a fingertip around the head of his cock, and Niccolò slapped his hand away with a snarled oath.

“So this game ends…when, exactly?”

“When he manages to achieve a certain configuration in the bedroom,” Volpe said, and snickered when Niccolò glared at him. “What, _tesoro?_ Would it be cheating to just ask him?”

“No,” Machiavelli retorted, and shot a sullen look at Ezio, who frowned back at him.

“What are you glaring at _me_ for?”

“Because you’re so _thick_.”

“Keep talking, Niccolò, see where it gets you.”

“A good politician knows that words are his sharpest weapon.”

“A good politician knows when to shut the fuck up,” Ezio shot back, and Machiavelli’s eyes flashed—but his cock twitched, and his cheeks flushed. He stuffed himself, still hard, back into his hose, and Ezio smirked. “You really are a glutton for punishment.”

“Shut up,” Niccolò said sourly. He broke off with an exasperated sigh when Volpe climbed into his lap, but didn’t try to shrug off the arm Volpe put around his shoulders, nor dodge the kisses the thief pressed into his hair.

“Look,” Ezio sighed, “whatever absolutely hare-brained thing you two are about to propose, just ask and be done with it. I don’t know whether to be excited or to sleep with one eye open.”

“Both, perhaps,” Volpe purred, and Ezio groaned.

“See, was that an invitation or a threat? Just put me out of my misery.”

Volpe considered for a moment, playing with Niccolò’s hair, and then he spoke more seriously than Ezio had heard in a long time. “We like you, Ezio. Clearly. Recently we enjoyed an intimate encounter with Leonardo, as well.”

Ezio didn’t know why those words should send a bolt through his ribs, but they did. He took a moment to collect himself, hoping his sudden discomfort hadn’t showed on his face, but he knew from the flash of his dark eyes that Machiavelli had seen—but then, Machiavelli saw everything. He cleared his throat and avoided his protégé’s gaze. “I see. And?”

“And,” Niccolò said, “we need more wine.” He looked up at Volpe. “Would you go fetch another bottle? Or two, if you planned on staying.”

“I didn’t, but I could be convinced,” Volpe replied, waggling an eyebrow. Niccolò tugged him close, murmured something in his ear, and the thief’s grin turned cat-like in its delight. “Oh, that is tempting. I’ll go fetch the wine, shall I? And you can make your case.”

Niccolò snorted and patted the thief’s ass as he got to his feet and left the room. The young man turned his gaze onto Ezio, all traces of eroticism and playfulness gone from his face, replaced by a thoughtful, pondering expression. Ezio shifted in his chair, uncomfortable.

“You know very well what we’re asking,” Niccolò said, and his voice was gentle, soft.

“Yes, I do,” Ezio admitted. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”

“I have always struggled to enjoy life in anything remotely resembling moderation,” Machiavelli quipped, sharp-tongued as ever, but his smile was easy. “If you don’t want to, _amico_ , you need only say so.”

Ezio shrugged, let his gaze fall away. “So you have to bribe Volpe to stay the night with you?”

Mercifully, Machiavelli permitted the change in topic, haphazard though it was. He quirked one thin brow. “A fox kit may take well enough to people, but they’re notoriously difficult to domesticate after they’re grown.”

Ezio glanced up, trying to parse the expression on Niccolò’s face. “Is he treating you well?”

Machiavelli blinked, taken aback, and then smiled. “How sweet of you to ask, Mentor.”

“Just answer the question, _cazzo_.”

The diplomat chuckled. “Yes, Ezio, he treats me well. He loves me, and he doesn’t let me forget it.” He paused, canting his head to the side, and his smile softened. “I’ve never known a man gentler than Gilberto.”

Ezio hesitated, and then the question burst from him before he could think better of it. “What is it like?”

“It?”

“Being—” Ezio paused, struggling. “Being with a man. I don’t mean for sex alone. I mean—being _with_ him.”

Niccolò looked at him for a while. Finally he smiled, shrugged. “I can’t describe it. For six years I’ve been searching for the words and they all fail. And that is something—you know how rarely words fail me. All I can offer is that he is the love of my life, and I intend to have him for as long as I possibly can. That’s all there is to it.”

Ezio nodded, his throat tight. He got to his feet. “I’m going to—”

“I know,” Niccolò said, and got up with him. “Think on it. There’s no rush.”

“Well, there is, evidently. All joking aside, how have you survived two weeks?”

Machiavelli grinned at him. “I am exceptionally strong-willed.”

“And cocky,” Ezio snorted, and patted his shoulder. The touch lingered a little, almost a caress. “ _Buona fortuna._ ”

“Thank you.” Machiavelli tucked his hands behind his back and watched his mentor depart out the window, disappearing into the warm Tuscan night. Then he sighed and glanced over at the door. “Coming back in?”

The door opened, and Volpe ducked back inside. The expression on his face was curiously perturbed, almost stricken, and Niccolò smiled, his heart aching.

“You were listening?”

Volpe didn’t reply for a prolonged moment, and when he did, his voice sounded oddly choked. “You think I’m the love of your life?”

“Surely you knew that.”

The thief shrugged. “It’s one thing to suspect,” he mumbled. “Entirely another to hear you say it.”

Niccolò crossed the room and pulled the older man into his arms, held on tight. Some small, terrified part of him still wondered when the day would come when he couldn’t have this, when the thief they called la Volpe would slip away in the night and not come back to him, when his Gilberto would no longer be his. He pressed his face into Volpe’s shoulder and closed his eyes, breathing a low sigh when his lover’s arms encircled his waist and held him close.

“You’re mine, too,” Gilberto murmured, his voice small and wondering, his hands gentle as they caressed the small of Niccolò’s back, the nape of his neck. Then he chuckled. “To think that a humble thief would be the one to leave Niccolò Machiavelli at a loss for words.”

“You are my downfall, to be sure, and you are anything but humble,” Niccolò said, and kissed his lover’s smile. “Stay the night.”

“ _Tesoro mio_.” Gilberto kissed him in turn, soft and searching, like it was the first time. “How could I do anything but?”

* * *

The truth was that he hadn’t stopped dreaming of Leonardo da Vinci since the day they’d met. An outlet besides vaginas, his mother had said, mere moments before, and hadn’t Ezio chafed at that, horrified at the very thought—and then Leonardo had just been _there_ , all beaming smiles and wide-eyed congenial wonder, and the sight of him had punched the breath straight from Ezio’s lungs. It had never quite come back ever since—not when it came to Leonardo.

He could lie to himself as long as he wanted, but hadn’t he run himself ragged across Italia hunting down every Codex page—not only because they were necessary, but because it was an excuse to see Leonardo? Didn’t he pay for strange inventions he didn’t need and would never put to any real use, just to see Leonardo’s whole countenance light up when they tested each one? And whenever he needed to take another plunge into the unknown, whenever the world threatened to increase in its sinister complexity around him, it was Leonardo he wanted at his side, Leonardo he went to for answers—because where the unknown could make Ezio near-breathless with fear, it made Leonardo come to life like nothing else in the world.

And yes—Ezio wanted him. Had always wanted him, right from the beginning. He’d just never been able to name it—it had never even _occurred_ to him to name that twisting in his stomach _desire_. The truth was that for all the years Ezio had been effectively homeless, Leonardo had been a roving pinprick of light, almost too brilliant and bright to look at directly—not a home per se, but the only thing in the world that came even close.

He couldn’t do anything about it alone. He knew that now. Templars, mad popes, relics of a lost civilizations, strange visions hidden beneath temples—none of those things scared him half as much as the prospect of kissing Leonardo da Vinci alone in the dark.

* * *

“What are you doing?”

Machiavelli—who had endured three weeks since his last orgasm, and yes, he’d rather the embrace of a quick death if he couldn’t enjoy a little one soon—looked up from his map of the northern states and blinked at Leonardo, who was painting him. He couldn’t explain Leonardo’s lingering fascination with sketching him any more than he could explain why he’d taken to loitering in the artist’s studio. At least he’d gotten accustomed to Leonardo’s curiously intense staring while he drew. “Trying to save the republic.”

Leonardo hummed, smiling a little as he looked back at his canvas. He had a smear of pale paint across his cheek that made him look more eccentric than ridiculous, and Niccolò found it weirdly and ludicrously endearing. “Aren’t there people older and more qualified who could do that?”

Niccolò snorted and looked back down at the map. “One would think.”

The artist’s chuckle was low, resonant, and Niccolò felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. He rubbed his nape in a manner he hoped was surreptitious. “Anything I can do to help?”

Machiavelli shrugged, pillowing his cheek on his knuckles. “Not unless you can move a river.”

“Sure.”

Niccolò looked up at that, frowning, in no mood for teasing, but Leonardo was still painting with that same studious expression. “What?”

“It would cost a lot of money, of course. Laborers. Materials. But it would be quite the feat of engineering.”

Machiavelli stared at him. A little frightening, Leonardo—that he could say things like that so deadpan, entirely serious. Several moments ticked by in utter silence before Leonardo looked up at him. A frown flickered across his face.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Niccolò said slowly, shaking his head. “I just…you think you’re so damn clever.”

Leonardo cracked a grin at that and looked back down at his palette. He mixed a new red, perhaps for the blush that was almost surely spreading across Niccolò’s cheeks. “So do you.”

God, there was nothing for it. Niccolò got to his feet and circled the table, removing his coat as he went, letting it drop with a heavy thump to the floor before he reached Leonardo’s chair. “Put the paint down.”

Leonardo looked up at him and raised a brow. “Why?”

“Because I want to fuck you.”

The most brilliant man in Italy, he supposed, shouldn’t be surprised by such a request, but Leonardo’s mouth actually went slack in shock. Niccolò made no move to touch him, waiting for his reply. Finally, Leonardo mumbled, “Ezio and Volpe said—well. Ezio did call you bossy.”

“And what did Volpe call me?”

“Bratty.”

Niccolò sighed. “If you don’t want to—”

“I want to,” Leonardo cut in, touchingly eager, and took Niccolò’s hand, tugged him a little closer. “Is it—alright? With la Volpe, I mean.”

“If it’s you or Ezio, it’s fine.” Niccolò slid his hands up Leonardo’s shoulders, into the reddish-gold waves of his hair, and smiled when Leonardo’s knees parted to let him step between them. “Can I kiss you?”

“Please,” Leonardo answered, a little weakly, and Niccolò did—cautiously at first, waiting to see if Leonardo would change his mind, but the artist only grasped him by the hips and tugged on him. Niccolò climbed into his lap, humming his assurance against Leonardo’s mouth when he felt the older man’s hands in his clothes, opening his doublet with practiced ease. He was not, he knew, Leonardo’s normal fare—the artist liked men like Ezio, big, slightly stupid hunks of muscle, and he supposed he could see the appeal, at least in Ezio’s case. There are all manner of paths to men’s hearts, Volpe had told him during one of those sweltering nights in Venice, when Niccolò was still learning all the ways the thief could take him apart. But even then it would be years yet before he stumbled along the path to Gilberto’s.

Leonardo surprised him. There was nothing shy or nervous about the way Leonardo undressed him, stroked his cock, held him against the artist’s own surprisingly firm chest. Leonardo drew back from an unapologetically hungry kiss, breathing hard, and nuzzled Niccolò’s nose with his own.

“Alright?”

“Yes,” Niccolò assured him, smiling, and arched his hips up to press his cock through the slick vice of Leonardo’s fist. “It’s not like I expected.”

Leonardo smiled back up at him, his eyes glinting, something playful in them. “You should know better by now than to make unqualified assumptions. Even about sex.”

“Maybe especially about sex.”

Leonardo patted his ass, urging him up, and Machiavelli climbed out of the chair. There was, perhaps, nothing in the world he wanted to watch more than this—the brilliant Maestro da Vinci undressing, hiking down his hose, bending over the table. Machiavelli dropped to his knees behind him and offered his tongue, and Leonardo drew a sharp gasp as he accepted it.

“So when you mention having to kiss noblemen’s asses in court…”

Niccolò uttered a short, startled laugh. “It’s usually figurative.”

“Usually?”

“Anything for my republic.”

“In me,” Leonardo requested, without further preamble, and Machiavelli clambered to his feet and shuffled in close, pressed into him. It was tight, dry, and he sank his teeth into Leonardo’s bare shoulder as he hitched his hips forward. His friend—co-conspirator, now—moaned loud and thick, dropping his head down between his arms with a softly uttered “ _Fuck_ ” that made Niccolò’s blood turn hot in his veins.

“Can you come like this?”

“If it’s hard.” Leonardo rocked back against him, and Niccolò snarled an oath against his shoulder blade. “Use me, Machia.”

So he did. He gave Leonardo the treatment of which he was normally on the receiving end, held him down the same way Volpe usually pinned him, by the hair, the nape, rough, bordering on cruel—but never quite, because it was Leonardo, after all, Niccolò’s friend, Ezio’s beloved.

Leonardo came on his cock, spent himself all over the tabletop and lay there breathing like a bellows while Machiavelli withdrew and squeezed the base of his erection until the overwhelming urge to ejaculate ebbed. Leonardo watched him over his shoulder, which had been left with an angry red mark where Niccolò had bit into him.

“You won’t…?” He gave his ass a wriggle, an invitation, and Niccolò smiled.

“No. Playing a game with Gilberto. I hate losing.”

Leonardo straightened and turned around, tugged him close, and Niccolò closed his eyes and gave himself over to the kisses Leonardo lavished upon his mouth. No wonder Leonardo left behind in his wanderings such a trail of broken hearts. At length, the artist nudged him and murmured, “Which river are we moving?”

“Pisa’s.”

“For what purpose?”

There was a real answer, a strategic one—but then there was the honest one. Niccolò contemplated a moment before he offered the latter. “To see if I can.”

Leonardo laughed, tossed his arms over Machiavelli’s shoulders, a languid gesture of intimacy. “Great men are remembered to history for less, I suppose. I gather this is meant to circumvent a rebellion?”

“Hopefully.”

The artist—he was more than that, Niccolò supposed, but Leonardo’s paintings made him hurt in ways that nothing else did, and it was for them that he hoped Leonardo would be remembered to history, if he had to be remembered for something—hummed and let their foreheads rest together. It was an achingly tender thing, and it made Niccolò suddenly wish he were with Gilberto, as much as he genuinely enjoyed Leonardo’s company. But there was no substituting a lover with a friend, even a very good one.

“You could just send troops,” Leonardo said softly. His thumb stroked the fine hair on the back of Niccolò’s neck. “Finally put to use that militia you’re so proud of assembling. That would be easier. You would only curry favor.”

Machiavelli shrugged one shoulder. It was true. No denying that. Italian politics still turned on shows of force, even if the show was mostly smoke and mirrors. But it took an awful lot of smoke to obscure a bloody battlefield, or the horrifying remains of a pillaging or rout. Leonardo’s smile was very gentle.

“You’re a good man, Niccolò,” he said, and Machiavelli blinked at him in earnest surprise. “If history remembers you for nothing else, let it remember that.”

Machiavelli raised his brows and gave a dry snort. “I very much doubt it will remember me at all.”

“It will,” Leonardo replied, with finality, in his whimsical, unworried way, like he could see the future. And perhaps, Niccolò thought, he could.

* * *

“You’re being an idiot.”

Ezio lifted his head and frowned at a man history would forget, but that would be for the better. Some men are only ever meant to live in shadows, be they literal or textual, and la Volpe was one such man. He sat perched in the window as comfortably as if he’d been born and bred on that very sill, watching Ezio with those curious eyes, and Ezio sighed as he got up from his cot.

“Our safehouses, evidently, are not so safe, if it’s so easy for you to find me here.”

“It would be unfair to measure the talents of other thieves and wrong-doers by my standards. I think your safehouses are safe enough.” Volpe swung his legs down and landed nimbly on the floor, brushing dust from his hose.

“I can’t think what I’ve done to warrant your charge of idiocy.”

Volpe snorted as he strode across the room, cape swishing across his back. He looked languid, feline—attractive, Ezio realized, a bit uncomfortably. It was very, very easy to read la Volpe’s every move as sexual, which belied his many dangers.

“Very tactical show of ignorance. Feigning you know less than you do is the first card in any good politician’s deck.” Volpe grinned. “You’ve been spending too much time with Niccolò.”

“I grew up in Florence, too,” Ezio grumped, willing himself not to back away as Volpe stopped within arms’ reach of him. His family had been powerful, after all, and friends to the Medici—why did everyone assume he’d gained all of his political know-how secondhand from Machiavelli, a man ten years his junior? When Ezio had been busy putting a stop to the Pazzi conspiracy, Niccolò was still a schoolboy. But no one seemed to remember that. “What do you want? Surely you didn’t drop by just to insult me.” Although Volpe did, sometimes—it just didn’t seem like one such visit.

Volpe tilted his head, his eyes narrowed. The smile on his mouth was not so playful anymore. “I think the question, my friend, is what do _you_ want? You are more than welcome to lie to me, to Niccolò, to the world, if you so choose—but I detest men who lie to themselves. And as you are my friend, I’d rather not come to detest you. _Capisci?_ ”

Ezio felt the hair on his arms standing on end and swallowed. “Does Niccolò know you’re here?”

“Does that matter?”

“Yes. I’d rather not be dead of poisoning two days from now.”

Volpe blinked, owlish, innocent, but it was a show. Everything with Volpe a show of some kind. Ezio thought he had only seen the man earnest once, and that was in the dark after their only night together, while Niccolò slept off the afterglow in his lap. “Have you done something for which Machia might want to see you poisoned?”

“I think I am about to.”

“Ah.” Volpe affected an easy smile, almost boyish in its charm, and unfastened his cape. “Yes, he knows. And I happen to know how he entertained himself this afternoon, and with whom. Would you like to know as well, _amico_?”

Ezio did not. But as he stepped forward and gripped Volpe’s chin, tipped his face up for a hard kiss, he felt an inkling that the thief was going to tell him anyway.

When Volpe had slipped away again, leaving Ezio to strip the bed and clean the sheets himself, the master assassin dressed to decency again and headed up to the roof. The nearest coop of pigeons was nearby, the birds cooing contentedly on their perches, and one gave an affronted little hoot as Ezio took it into his palms and brought it down to the safehouse.

He sent the pigeon to Niccolò, tied to its leg a very simple message, just three little words, but they could change everything.

* * *

“This, at least,” Machiavelli said, the next morning, spreading the missive before Leonardo with a smile. “Tell me that _this_ , at least, you haven’t done.”

And, with pink spreading across his cheeks as he looked at the words relayed in Ezio’s messy scrawl, Leonardo shook his head.

_When and where?_


End file.
